Your Right to Know

After some maybe so’s and probably nots, likely 2014 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ed
FitzGerald apparently will have an opponent in the May 6 primary.

Larry Ealy of the Dayton area submitted 1,321 valid signatures, Montgomery County Board of
Elections Director Jan Kelly told
The Dispatch. Candidates for statewide office from major parties need 1,000 valid
signatures to qualify, so barring unforeseen circumstances, Ealy will be on the Democratic ballot
against FitzGerald.

Signatures to qualify for the May 6 primaries for all candidates were due on Feb. 5, and local
county boards had until 4 p.m. yesterday to verify their validity.

For more than a month, Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune was threatening to run against
FitzGerald, but he announced earlier this month that he would not. In the meantime, Ealy had
apparently been collecting signatures for some time and turned in enough to make it. Neither Ealy
nor Ken Gray of Cincinnati, his running mate, could be reached for comment.

“I think he’s been collecting signatures for over a year,” said Mark Owens, chairman of the
Montgomery County Democratic Party, who said he has not talked to Ealy. “I think he went up to
Sinclair Community College; apparently he’s been doing this since at least the spring.”

Owens had previously told
The Dispatch that Ealy was a “perennial candidate” who hadn’t previously qualified for any
ballot.

Kelly said Ealy collected 3,582 signatures — 582 more than the legal limit — and that Secretary
of State Jon Husted’s legal office advised Montgomery County to consider all the signatures. The
secretary of state’s office would not confirm Ealy’s signature count but expects to announce all
candidates who qualified for primaries next week.

Ealy told Dix Communications newspapers last week that he spoke to jail inmates of his
candidacy.

“I told some of the inmates I am running for governor, and I will be back to clean this jail
out,” he said.

Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for FitzGerald, had no comment.

The FitzGerald-Ealy primary — FitzGerald has $1.4 million on hand and the endorsements of most
statewide unions and state Democratic organizations; Early presumably has none of that — will be
the only statewide intraparty race.